Mind Over Matter
by Punzie the Platypus
Summary: Despite the whole serial killer thing that's happening, Stiles still has a mind on Lydia Martin, and so he's being crazy and ending up on her front porch to help her get over a fear that, hey, she doesn't want to work through. But his fabulous plan somehow pulls through, as they head to the local pool and get through that fear together. STYDIA.


_**Soli Deo gloria**_

**DISCLAIMER: I do NOT own Teen Wolf. I hate this series. So perfect. XD  
**

If there was one word that could describe Stiles Stilinki, it was determined. Because when he set his mind to a job, he did it. He never half-assed something if he could help it. Mr. Harris could have said otherwise, but that was because Stiles did not want to set his mind to stupid things like homework or Mr. Harris's famous detentions.

This was probably why Stiles was standing at the house of one Lydia Martin with a couple of beach towels under his arm, wearing a pair of dark blue swimming trunks and a determined glare in his brown eyes.

Of course he wasn't sure this was a _good _idea. He'd be the first to admit that his ideas were, well, not the best in the world, but what else could he do, eh? While there was mysteries deepening all over Beacon Hills determining deaths and murders and sacrifices and of course werewolves and all their supernatural glory, there was something always in the back of his mind. Oh, more like a someone rather than a something.

Lydia, obviously.

He sort of blamed that on his love for her since the third grade.

Thing was that he cared so _frickin' __much about her _that while everything was going on, while this tiny shitty little town was going to hell in a hand-basket and all the people were at a constant, should-not-be-frequent risk of being killed by some serial killer who liked messing with everyone's heads. And he knew her. He knew her more than she knew herself, and never, _never _would she admit it, but Lydia was scared. So scared. And there was something he wanted to do about it. Because he hadn't been spending more time watching her dully from behind her in class or trying to capture her attention in the halls, he felt like he wasn't really paying enough attention to her. With so much going on, you know, and all his attention on that. Not on her. And he didn't really like that.

So here he was, on a dark and cool night, with no luminescent fireflies, on her front porch, and his fingers were sweaty as they turned into a fist and knocked on her door.

"Come on, come on, come on," he said, bouncing on the balls of his feet. And he hoped that it would be Lydia and not her mother. Please don't let it be grumpy Mrs. Martin, please please please please please . . . .

And he nearly fist-pumped but caught himself when the door opened to reveal a pursed-lips Lydia. She was dressed in a comfortable looking blouse, knee-length skirt, and her hair was over both shoulders in eye-catching ringlets. But her eyes. Her beautiful green eyes looked almost dead. There were shadows beneath them that made her look haunted.

"And what are you doing here?" Lydia asked in her usual casual/snappy/best tone he ever heard but didn't have time for.

"I am going to make a point. That was my plan," Stiles replied.

Lydia looked confused, though she tried to hide it.

Stiles sighed. "Look, I know things have been crazy with all these killings and all that—"

"I've noticed. Funnily enough," Lydia said.

"Hey. Don't interrupt me, okay, because I'm just trying to help you," Stiles said quickly, looking for once unamused by her sarcasm. "Because, Lydia, with all the killings, everyone IS focused on them." Especially his dad. "But I think I might be the only person who actually noticed something else."

"You figured out the pattern?" Lydia asked.

"No. I noticed you."

That shouldn't have surprised Lydia. Yet it did.

"I noticed at the pool, with the dead lifeguard. You couldn't step closer. To the water. Like the Kanima. It's like . . . this has affected, _scarred_ you, into being afraid of the pool. But of course," Stiles bobbed his head, "pools are also water." And he could definitely see the streaks of dirt across her face that she didn't wash off. The mascara marks that couldn't be wiped off with a dry cloth. The dry powdery makeup on her cheeks. All still there.

Lydia cocked her head and said, "Actually, Stiles, I'm perfectly fine concerning water. So your concern is unneeded."

"Then why haven't you bathed since then?" Stiles wanted to know, pointing to her face.

Lydia automatically put three fingers to her cheek and played a smile at him. "I haven't gotten ready for bed yet."

"DON'T try to fool me, Lydia," was all Stiles said. He wanted to say more, but he didn't want to push her. He simply looked back at her with a slightly impatient look. All she could do was stare back.

Lydia was silent. She could feel her heart pounding inside her. It always did these days, whether Stiles was annoyed with her or not.

"Why are you here, then?" she asked, her voice quick and short, like she could barely breathe.

"Because I want to help get rid of that fear." Because the Lydia Martin he knew strutted, was the belle of the ball, the center of attention. Fearless.

And it scared him to see her scared.

"How do you plan on doing that, exactly?" said Lydia.

Stiles moved his arm to indicate the towels under them. "I may have a plan."

Lydia only stared at him. Then she said, "Wait a minute," and she may have closed the door in his face, but she was out in a few minutes in a tight dark green bikini with her own towel around her waist to cover her stomach.

"Won't need sunscreen, will we? Not at this time of night," Lydia said, and she walked down the path leading to Stiles's old Jeep. This made Stiles hurry after her as she said, "We're taking your car, right?"

"Yeah, yeah," he said.

They got in and they drove. Stiles, obviously took the wheel, and couldn't help but think that any other time than this, if this had happened even six months ago, he would have been out of his mind with elation. Lydia, the girl he had had a crush on for pretty much ever, was in his car, the front seat, in her bathing suit no doubt, ready to go do one of his stupid plans. But now he wasn't surprised. He knew that she needed a distraction, something to control. He was offering to help her control a situation without being afraid. That was something she hadn't had since she was bitten.

They arrived at the public pool and found it unlocked. They hadn't replaced the lock since the murder. The place was as clean as you could expect a pool open to all the people of Beacon Hills to be. At least there was no blood. All evidence of the murder had been cleaned up by the CTS decon. All that remained were the haunted memories of a lifeguard sitting on his chair, slightly bent over, with blood streaming down from his throat. An image that was frozen and wanted away by all who had seen it.

Stiles knew her fear was bad, and so he wasn't surprised when she instantly stopped at the wire gate and stared on with that cold, perplexed look he had grown used to seeing on her pale face.

He instantly backtracked to her side. He had to look down to see her face. "Lydia? Hey. You all right?" A stupid question. Damn it. But he had nothing else. What else was there to say? Seriously. 'I'm sorry that you are thinking of a murdered guy, do you want to stand here for an hour until you can walk forward?' Stiles could be insensitive to everyone, but not Lydia. Not at the moment.

"I'm fine," she said automatically.

"Okay. So . . . can you go to the pool now?"

Lydia looked up at him then. Maybe a six inch distance between them. "Baby steps, Stiles." She looked back at the pool and took a few steps forward then. More than Stiles had expected. But he wasn't surprised. He still knew that fearless Lydia Martin was in her. She was just so beaten back that he'd have to dig to find her again. But he'd find her.

He closed the gate after them, though it wouldn't do much in keeping people away, and followed her to a chair. She still clung to the towel around her waist as she turned to him and said, "How are we going to do this?"

"My basic plan is to get you in the water and calm your heart rate down," Stiles said, shrugging.

Lydia stared at him. "Sounds like a plan." Her words were sarcastic that time.

"One of my better ones," Stiles said, shrugging again. He put the towels on the chair and tugged off his shirt, revealing a scrawny physique that Lydia had expected he had. But there were some lean muscles from whatever lacrosse he somehow made time for. She stared at him as he raised and dropped his arms, saying, "Okay. I guess I'll go first."

She didn't respond.

He tilted his head and said quietly, inquiringly, "Lydia?"

"Go ahead," she said, and she turned away and took a seat on the chair with the towels.

Okay. So maybe she wasn't as impressed as he had hoped. But what could he do? It's not like he had the body of lacrosse jock Jackson Whittemore. And he had been faced with her blunt ignoring toward him for nine years, anyway, so he didn't take it too hard (of course he did) as he stepped down into the pool. He winced and hissed slightly. It was cold.

He got to the middle of the water before he turned to Lydia, who was staring at the white concrete, and he said, "Hey. Okay. I am in the water and you are not. Am I the only one who can see the problem?"

Lydia looked back to him. "What problem?"

He muttered to himself as he kicked to keep himself afloat, "Apparently I am." He dove under the water and came up, his hair dripping with water, at the edge of the pool. Gripping it, he heaved himself out of the water a bit and he said, "Come on, Lydia. Try to come in."

"I don't want to," she said, cocking her head a bit.

He glared at her. "So you decided to agree to come with me just to waste my time?"

Her eyes cast down and she refused to answer.

He sighed and said, "Come on, Lydia. Do you want to deal with that? That crippling fear that'll haunt you for the rest of your life unless you get rid of it?" His voice held reason and pleading. When she didn't answer, he added, "Haven't you ever heard of getting back on a horse immediately after you've fallen off, or else you'll never get back on? Lydia?"

Her arm wrapped more tightly around the towel.

"Lydia, if you don't nip this fear in the bud while it's still raw and not so solidified, it'll be there forever, Lydia. And you don't need another thing to worry about for the rest of your life, Lydia." He sighed and looked down at the clear water that shifted and wavered slightly around his chest. "Come on, Lydia." He looked up. "Mind over matter. You know that. It's a mind over matter thing."

She finally met his eyes, which were solid and dark and unrelenting. She finally said, "Fine," and she walked to the far edge of the pool where the steps were located.

Stiles turned and whispered to himself, "Yes," and then swam over to her, his arms going in and out of the surface of the water.

At the pool's edge Lydia tentatively stuck a foot in the water. She broke the surface of the water, sending ripples, little circles going through the water. She shivered and withdrew her foot.

The ripples reached the water that Stiles was currently disturbing. He had reached water that was shorter than him and therefore was walking on the bottom of the pool instead of swimming as he said to Lydia, "You wanna go slow?"

Lydia squeezed her eyes closed and shook her head. "No." She whispered to herself so she thought that she could only hear, "Mind over matter. Mind over matter. Mind over matter." But Stiles heard every word.

Finally, at the third step, she tentatively threw her towel a short distance away. It fell in a pile. Then she gasped and dove under water completely.

"Wait, Lydia?" Stiles said, instantly alarmed.

She came up after a moment gasping desperately, and he quickly swam over to her. Something was wrong, because she should not have done that. Not in her right mind. Okay. Stiles officially hated whatever Lydia was now, because he didn't know it. He knew Lydia, but not it. And that sorta freaked him out.

He came to her side and his arm went around her waist on instinct, and he felt instantly hurt when she quickly pulled away, shirking away from him as if he was Peter Hale. But he quickly reminded himself that this was Lydia, freaked out-haunted Lydia, and it was obvious that she should draw away from him.

But that didn't make it hurt him any less.

"Okay, maybe this is too fast," he said hurriedly.

"No. No, I'm fine," Lydia gasped. Her eyes were wide and she was breathing heavily, but she seemed determined to get herself to calm down.

Stiles realized that his plan had to be implemented. "Okay. I once had a fear of spiders. Stupid fear now, I realize, yes, but what helped me is when I saw one, I imagined squashing it. Concentrating on something else can help you not recognize the fear you're feeling right now."

"I know that, Stiles. I'm not _stupid_," Lydia said quickly.

"I know that," Stiles said. Of course he knew she was a genius. Making a molotov cocktail was not an everyday feat that just any high school student could make. At least, one they couldn't make and remember the perfect steps and measurements to. "But you're doing it, so _I__'m reminding you—_" he was now trying to keep her from going under, because it seemed that she was losing control of her legs. The water was maybe four feet, but she was gasping and writhing like she was in the ocean.

He quickly caught her now. If there was something he was not going to do, it was that he was not going to let the brilliant Lydia drown in a pathetic amount of water. Nope. Not to mention he'd never explain this to her parents and his dad would kill him. Hey, maybe they could get buried side by side. But he highly doubted that was a possibility. Besides, he'd want to be buried next to his mom.

His arm around her waist didn't seem to alarm her too much now. She was far more concerned about drowning than she was about him feeling her skin.

She shrieked and screamed, like she was inwardly getting tortured. Stiles's mind raced. It was split as one half made him say, "Lydia, Lydia, you need to calm down! I got you, Lydia, Lydia, I've got you! You won't drown, stop!" and the other half was back at the counseling office with Ms. Morrell. How he had gone over the process of drowning. Of what internal agony you went through before the water came flooding in, sending a course of relief through the body.

He wanted her in agony. If she was in agony, she was alive.

"Lydia, you need to calm down! You won't drown, I've got you! Lydia! _Lydia!_" and somehow he must have gotten through to her. His voice that she ignored for so many years managed to wiggle into her brain and make her stop moving, so she was no longer writhing but was rather being clutched close in his arms. She gasped and hiccuped and he said as she leaned against his shoulder, tears streaming down her face, "Okay. That was a bad idea."

He brought her back to the chair, nearly carrying her. She was lighter than he thought she would be, and he wondered if she had been eating. He gently placed her on the chair and wrapped one of the towels he had brought around her. Hers was lying limply on the dirty ground.

He didn't know what to say. Apologize? He guessed that could work. He sighed and pressed the heel of his hand against his forehead. Of course he had foreseen that this would be hard, but he didn't know it would be THIS hard. THIS hard was scaring him, making him feel like he had done wrong. Deathly wrong.

"I'm sorry, Lydia. I—I thought I had an idea that I could help you. Apparently all I've done is set off a bomb." Typical Stiles. If his dad was here, he'd have to endure another critical reprimand, one that he would receive wholeheartedly.

Lydia was calm. Her face was still streaked with tears, but she looked back at him with a straight, composed face. The previous face of the fearless Lydia Martin. She watched him as he sat on the chair opposite her, the towel over his shoulders, two of its corners being clutched to his chest with tight fists.

"You've done more than anyone else has," she said quietly, whispering.

"Yeah, and have failed more, if you haven't noticed," Stiles said, looking at the ground and setting his jaw.

"Failure leads to success soon enough," Lydia pointed out.

"Yeah. But I'd rather not have to put you through a bunch of failures, _probably _scarring you further, to reach success," Stiles said.

He took a deep breath. So did she. They needed a moment.

A pause followed, which was then followed by Stiles as he asked, "Now, feel free to cut me off or reply harshly when I ask this, but . . . the bite—"

"What about the bite?" Lydia said quickly, raising her head at the word.

"The one that Peter gave you. Did it . . . ever . . . you know . . . fully heal?" he raised his eyes to meet hers at this.

To reply, she shuddered and pulled back the towel to reveal a very long, thick, harsh scar running down her side. The shape and bumps of animal teeth. She didn't want to do this, but she couldn't speak of it. Normally, showing was even worse, but this was _Stiles_. He had stayed an entire weekend at the hospital and then sped off to find her when she had run off. He deserved to know something. And he understood.

She raised her eyebrows when his eyes went across the scar, and he swallowed, saying quietly, "It did heal."

"Yeah. An ugly heal," Lydia said.

"Yeah. Yeah, it looks bad," Stiles said.

Well, didn't that just boost her self-confidence. But her breath caught and she couldn't move when he tentatively reached his fingers out, his eyes searching hers the whole while, until they pressed against the fine pale skin.

Her side didn't hurt at all. It had hurt _so much _when she was lying in her hospital bed. Even unconscious, the pain had penetrated through and burned her. But now there was nothing. All she felt were his cold fingertips.

"Does that hurt?" he asked.

She shook her head. "Nope. Not at all."

He withdrew his hand, almost reluctantly. "Well, that's good."

She replaced the towel hurriedly. "Of course it is."

"That was the deal with the towel—then?" he said, realizing only how bad that sounded the second it left his mouth.

Lydia nodded.

"Well, it—it doesn't look THAT bad," Stiles said quickly, trying to make amends with some sort of flattery, as if saying something didn't look half as bad as it could be was supposed to be some weird sort of consolation.

"Oh. Thank you." Wait, she sounded sincere. Seriously? He straightened and she sighed. "What? You didn't think my fear of going in a pool is all because of the water, did you?"

"Didn't know you were one to give into society peer pressure," Stiles said slowly.

"Unlike you?" Lydia said, sounding tired.

Hey, that was true. If he gave into the peer pressure of high school, surely he'd be tattooed and riding some motorcycle while trying to flirt with girls. Yeah, but he was an epic fail at those. So he stuck with his own thing, despite what people liked or didn't.

He cleared his throat and said, "Am I pressuring you too much now?"

Lydia stared back at him, taking in his eyes, which really were the windows to his soul. They were concerned, scared, regretful, hard, determined, loving, all at once. That scared her and excited her, that she could make him feel all at once. They told her that he didn't WANT to make her do it, but he needed her to do it. Please.

She found herself shaking her head and saying, "No," and she stood up, making him immediately stand up as well, the towel on his shoulders sliding so that it covered only his right shoulder.

"Whoa, careful," he said.

She met his eyes and said firmly, "I'm tired of being careful," and she threw off the towel and strutted over to the stairs leading down to the pool.

Stiles watched her with wide eyes, and suddenly a grin appeared on his face and he gave in and did a fist pump as he quickly went to the steps as well.

She went in very carefully, taking a step forward maybe every ten seconds. She took a deep breath each time her foot left a stair.

He was beside her in a minute. He couldn't speak; he didn't know what to say, because this was more than he could have hoped her. She was beating up her fear with vigor. He could see that she was determined as he was to beat this fear, to get rid of it, and he was excited. Really, really excited.

"Hey, that's—that's good, Lydia," he said, sounding calm yet flabbergasted.

She closed her eyes and took in a deep breath. He took this as a sign to shut up. But of course he didn't shut up. This was major progress, and when she was covered in water up to the chest, she felt him at her side.

"Did I do it?" she asked uncertainly, peeking one eye open.

"Definitely, Lydia," he said, sounding no longer so giddy but certain.

She opened her other eye and saw that she was in the water. Okay. In the water, and the tendrils of panic she should have been feeling were fading away. Huh. That was a new sensation. The water wasn't harming. It was calm. Moving gently. Gentle water. And there was no black plague or blood or hair or arms grabbing her leg in this water. No. It was perfectly ordinary looking, and for once she felt safe.

She was not sure if she felt safe because the water was clean, or because she had someone to fall back on.

"I'm doing it," she whispered to herself.

"Yeah, Lydia, yeah you are," Stiles said, and he sounded so _proud of her_.

"Yeah. I am," Lydia said, and feeling a little daring, she splashed him slightly.

He looked hardly perturbed, so of course she did it harder. This water hit him full on the face, and she laughed, a good, genuine laugh, when he blinked rapidly and said, "Yeah, I think you're back."

He opened his eyes to see her smiling, almost conspiratorially, at him, and he said, "What? Wait, what'd I do now?"

"Everything," she whispered. Her smile faded to something else, a soft smile, not her usual smirking but a weak one that told him everything he needed to know. "Thank you."

"Hey," he said, "no prob."

She knew that it was a bit of a problem for him. She had taken a big chunk of his life when he could be helping solve murders and work things out with Scott, and so he was lying when he said that. But that didn't mean that it didn't touch her that he said that. Because maybe to him, it was no prob. In reality, yes, it was. But not to him. Because he could have all the time in the world, and he'd spend it with her.

He was comforting, helpful, and that was a comforting thought.

**MY STYDIA FEELINGS.**

**Seriously, Stiles is literally one of my top favorite characters EVER.**

**Thanks for reading! **


End file.
